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Dear Students,
For this assignment, we are going to look at the origins of the Salem Witchcraft Trials.
Whilst there were many possible reasons for this tragedy, including the failure of the City on a Hill, the loss of the Massachusetts Bay Charter, and greedy people taking advantage of the opportunity to gain their neighbors' wealth by accusing them of witchcraft, the origins of the actual hysteria began with an Indigenous Peoples slave woman named Tituba. Recent historical evidence suggests that Tituba may have come from Colombia or Barbados, where she was originally forced into slavery.
Here is a good background on Tituba (ignore the few errors, there was no "country" to speak of, and the trials lasted almost a year!). This is a secondary source that contains some primary sources, but it provides some basic information about her that will help you with your assignment.
Here are your primary sources, which means they were written during the time of the Trials themselves.
https://salem.lib.virginia.edu/n125.html#n125.3 Links to an external site.
SWP No. 125.5 (same link as above)
Apparently 6 of the 9 judges during the Trials were related by marriage. All of them were part of the elite of the Bay Colony. With all of the bad luck happening to the Colony, could they have been looking for a scapegoat to blame everything on? Certainly 2/3 of those executed were women, and many of them did not meet the stereotypical "Puritan" mold.
Bearing that in mind, read the sources and then answer the following question in one full essay. Please see the guide on How To Write An Essay in the Modules section; you will need to follow the format shown there to receive full points! Be careful with your answers; everything that you write needs to address the questions so don't go off on tangents!
Read Tituba's first 2 examinations. (Not the different versions of the same examination, but the first two separate occasions). There is also evidence that her owner, Minister Samuel Parris, beat Tituba into confessing; she later recanted her confession.
“At the end Tituba recanted her confession, admitting that she had lied to protect herself. That action had little effect on the subsequent events and was almost lost in the rush by other confessors, in fear of damnation, to admit their terrible sin. Tituba’s attempt to retract her confession received scant attention at the time and was ignored in the written reports of most observors. Only Robert Calef made note of it: ‘The account she [Tituba] since gives of it is, that her Master did beat her and otherways abuse her, make her confess and accuse (such as he call’d) her Sister-Witches, and that whatsoever she said by way of confession or accusing others, was the effect of such usage.’ Hers was not the first retraction of a reluctant confession. The others had already received a great deal of attention.”1
Question: Now think about this. Tituba was probably smarter than anyone else in Salem, the Harvard graduates notwithstanding. She knew how to survive, having dealt with slavers and other miserable people for years. How did this characteristic, along with her horrible experience at Parris' hands, play into her actions during her trial?
You should be able to find all of the information you need from the sources listed above. If you need to, you can google Tituba (on a reputable site) for more information on her background and influence on Salem, but remember, this is a Primary Source Assignment and needs to be mostly PS material! (Good sources of information include the History of Salem, the History of Massachusetts, etc... No Witches R Us or anything like that! While Wicca is an actual religion, most of the practitioners are not historians and tend to look at the mystical side of "witchcraft" rather than the historical side.) Don't forget to submit your work through Turnitin! There are directions on how to do so in the syllabus. :)
1. Breslaw, Elaine G. Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem: Devilish Indians and Puritan Fantasies. New York University Press, 1997